5 Reasons Podcasts Need Editing

Podcasting has become one of the best ways of reaching your audience, building your brand and enhancing your success. It’s essentially your own radio show. You can do whatever you like – interview guests, monologue, converse with another host, and use all of those ways to enhance your success online. However, if you’re not bothering to edit your podcast, you might be sabotaging your own efforts. Here are five reasons you should be editing your podcast.

Items of No Value or Interest to Your Audience You might be under the impression that every word that comes out of your mouth is solid gold. Or perhaps you think that because your guest is a highly rated expert, he or she can say nothing wrong. That’s incorrect. You can add content that has no value to your audience or bearing on the topic very easily, and just as easily see your listener numbers drop. Edit your podcast to remove those meaningless content bits.

Ohs and Ahs Everyone does it. We all start off with oh, or um, or ah. We use those sounds to fill in the void while our brain tries to access the information we need to come out of our mouths. However, while it’s natural, it’s not enjoyable to listen to. Your audience will thank you for editing your podcast in order to remove it. Drill down and slice out all those annoying non-words, and you might be surprised at just how concise your podcast is.

Unwanted Interruptions As a rule, podcasts are not recorded in professional studios. They’re done in your home office, or on the job. They’re done in the living room while using the laptop. This means that you’re open to a wide range of unwanted interruptions from the cell phone ringing to the dog barking or the neighbor knocking on your door. Your audience neither needs to hear any of that nor wants to sit through it. Edit it out.

Improving Production Value The phrase “production value” should resonate with you as a podcaster. It applies to the quality and value of the final product you’re putting out in the marketplace. If you’re doing a podcast just for fun and don’t care how many people ever tune in, then production value won’t matter to you. However, if you’re like most podcasters and are using your ‘cast as a tool to build success, production value matters a great deal. Edit it. Edit it now.

Reshuffling Content Snippets How often have you thought to yourself, “Wow, that bit really should have come before this other”. With editing, that can be done easily. All you have to do is snip and paste, and you can rearrange your audio content to make more sense, drive home a point better or for any other reason. It does wonders for your production value and your listener engagement as well.

As you can see, editing your podcast is important for a number of different reasons. Rest assured that if you don’t edit it, you’ll lose listeners.